The Grumpy Monkey

Whales, Dolphins and a Mongoose

Where can you see all of these creatures in a day? That would be Maui. It is my favorite place in the world. If you have not been there go, if you have been there why did you come back? I always wonder why I come back and then remember about work, my pets, friends and family. It is the only place other than the Bay Area I would ever want to live.

That is my favorite beach, Airport Beach. Coming north out of Lahina(there is only road) turn left at the Sugar Train and go down to the beach. If you are lucky you will meet my friends, the turtles. This is a picture I took of the Mama-San turtle as she glided by me in the water. I did not swim up to her or bother her in any way, she just wanted to say hello I guess.

The island in the background is Lani'i and is a fun place to spend the day. I have gone there twice, the only problem is you have to go on a boat. Have you ever seen a monkey on a boat? Well its not so pretty. We go out through a company called Trilogy.

The people who run this company really have the right idea. They are kind, knowledgeable and professional. They do all kinds of trips but both times we have choosen to go to Lani'i beacause of the fantastic beach they bring you too. This time there was a pod of 100 spinner dolphins. They came into the bay and played about 200 feet out. Sadly a bunch of people on our trip swam out to them. The dolphins come into the bay to rest, so when people bother them and swim up to them they leave. The fines are big and the gamewardens really strict but a lot of people vacationing there have ungodly ammounts of money and see the fine as more of a price of admission.

This is the bay where we snorkled and saw lots of amazing fish. That resort in the back ground is amazing and tremendously expensive!-

After snokeling the crew cooks a big BBQ(veggies too) and then you sail back to Maui during the sunset. This year we saw lots of whales. They were around us all the way out and back. Even while driving from Lahina to Kihei you could look out to the ocean and see them! It was great!

Here are a couple views of the sail back to Maui-

Such a perfect day was made even better by going back to my inlaws condo in Hono Kawai. My mother in law made us fantastic Koren food(she is from Korea) for dinner while we watched the birds in the back yard.

We did a lot of other things, including seeing a Mongoose up close when really we were out looking for donkeys. I will save those strories for another time.

Because I Rate...That's Why!

Look at the beautiful cross stiches my Mom made me! She has been working on them for almost 2 years and wow are they amazing! She said when she started working on the first one she thought she would go crazy from all the different colors. You can see every color is represented(well mostly) in every design.

Have you heard the expression "I rate" before? It is something my Grandma has always said and is used on an occasion when someone gives you something or does something for you that is way beyond anything you could have hoped for, like these 4 cross stiches.

I hung them in my window so I could see the light come through behind them all day. I am so spoiled right now!

Girls Weekend...Yay!

Well we had a great weekend with our North State girlfriends. We ate a tremendous amount of food and had more fun than I have experienced in a very long time! Our friends house is very nice and looks out into a canyon. It was rainy but I love it rainy; especially when there is a fireplace inside and a hot tub outside.

Early Saturday morning, after a long night of eating way too much sugar and laughing, I stood up from my air mattress, put on my swim suit, got some coffee and sat in the hot tub for a very long time. It was gently raining, the coffee was perfectly sweetened and I was looking out into a beautiful canyon. I really needed it.

Life has been crazy and busy and I have had the flu twice since Xmas. Not really the way I was hoping to bring in the new year but that's okay. Now I just have allergies, which is slightly insulting after not being able to breathe the last 2 months.

But back to the hot tub. I had the most fantastic talk with a friend that morning. A real girl to girl heart fest. I have not done that in a very long time, mostly due to my chronic grumpy status. But we talked about many things and then just sat there and had our coffee. And I felt so much better.

It was a real treat to be in the hot tub in the first place. I finally have my high blood pressure under control, without medication even! It was the first time in 5 years. After the soak I met up with The Wife and we had a lovely breakfast together with the girls.

All together there were 11 women and we had a great time. One of the highlights was getting my hair cut by the lovely Renee, a lady of many talents. It looks so good now. She was super nice and cut it really short just the way I like. I always feel so much better after a haircut. I have a bad habit of letting my hair grow out way too long between cuts, so when I finally give in and have it cut it is a real change. Now it looks nice and has some style! People will not recognize me!

It was a lovely weekend!

Tonight I felt like making some banana bread but did not have enough banana's. I had about half what I needed and so looked through the kitchen trying to come up with something to mix the banana's with. I came up with some pumpkin left over from Thanksgiving. It was canned so no worries the it was too old. I also had some chocolate chips so I put some of them into the batter too. It came out really good-here's the proof.

At Work Today

While at work today in a local community college I had to take a rest room break. I went to the nearest ladies room and as I entered I heard a kind of scraping sound. I can't describe it very well but it was rhythmic and non threatening. Non threatening being the optimum word here. The college were I work is not necessarily dangerous but often there are cultural misunderstandings. Like one day when I entered the ladies room and this guy(foreign born student) walked right in behind me. I turned around and told him to get out. He starts yelling at me! "Your hair is too short for a woman's!" What a dick, huh?

Oh well this sound continues and I am now washing my hands at the sink and racking my brains about what that sound is. I really wanted to know, I was thinking air vent or pipes and then it hit me. Someone was unwinding the gigantic toilet paper roll and kept having to pull down a section of the paper and then wrap it up and then do it again and again and again...

Oh my! Then the I had to know who could be doing this? I am a naturally curious person and yes, it has gotten me into trouble. But it was very interesting and worthwhile trouble.

I could not wash my hands forever and as there are only 2 stalls I went out and waited.

An old old immigrant lady comes out with a big big bag. She looked well fed and healthy and quite happy. And why not? That was a LOT of free toilet paper!

Bacon

As you may or may not know I am a vegetarian. It was a sudden thing with me, not done for political reasons or to save animals whom I had been enjoying eating for years. It was a sudden epiphany that what I was doing was just plain wrong and I would have to start eating people if I was going to eat animals. Kinda gross but true.

The last and hardest thing for me to give up was bacon. The smell, the flavor and texture are pure heaven. But I gave it up and I am very happy because of it. I do not care if other people eat meat or not, just like I don't care what other people do as long as they leave me alone and let me be too.

A strange thing has been happening here in the house. One of our neighbors is eating bacon all the time. Not a couple times each week but 2-4 times each day. This has been going on for 2 months now. At random random times. Last night it was at 1230 am. Third time that day!

The smell is great, I can't deny that when I smell it. Even at 1230 am the smell of bacon cooking last night woke me up and made my mouth water. So far I have successfully talked myself out of having bacon 2-4 times each day for the last 2 months. It has not been easy.

The after smell of bacon is not good at all. Our apartment is at the top of the house so the smell of cold bacon fat permeates my home for 2-4 times each day. I think it would be easier if it were summer and I could keep my windows open all the time. As it is now I just have to ignore it.

I feel like I am experiencing some kind of food karma.

(Oh my lord, he is cooking it right now)

But it is winter and cold and raining and I am grumpy. I would never ask a neighbor not to cook something. I wouldn't even know how to start a conversation like that! I have lived in places where the smells of cooking where much much worse and disturbing. I just hope he switches to a new, less olfactory pleasing meat, very very soon.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all have been having a great new year and enjoying all the rain. We lost power on Friday for the whole day, luckily it went back on at around 8pm. It was not so bad because our heater has a battery back up. Yay landlord! Not something I would have even known about.

Oh, the picture! So Oaklandish! Can you make it out if you squint real hard? No? Well I can't really either but let me tell you what it is. The Wife and I were out in the rain doing errands the week before Xmas. We are at a stoplight and all of a sudden I am pretty sure I am having some kind of-as the kids say-"flashback."

You see there is a blue van in front of me and suddenly the license plate is melting! I know it can't do that! It is made of metal after all! Oh my god maybe I should let the Wife drive! But the Wife is seeing it too! She asks me if i think that license plate in front of us is made of paper?

Oh yes of course it is paper! Someone has photo copied a license plate and taped it to their license plate holder! Oh my, I need a minute to stop laughing so hard. So Oakland-so funny-side hurts-gasp-laughing so hard!

Wanna Buy Some....

Well I guess technically it is Berkeley. Last week I had an appointment over by the White Horse(or as we call it the white-ho) Bar on Telegraph. It is always hard to park over there and I hate to pay so I decided to turn into a neighborhood and see if I could score some free parking.

I turned down a street and saw mostly blocking the road some kind s delivery truck, unmarked. I squeezed by, barely, and found a place to park. I was early so I flipped on NPR cause I am smart like that and sat there. I saw an old woman get out of the drivers side of the truck and ook up and down the street. She got back in the truck and backed it down the street, almost killing my truck, until she was lateral with a man and woman who were "walking" down the street. I say "wlaking" cause they were so drunk! That man and lady looked like they were having a good time as they weaved down the side walk.

The lady from the truck rolled her window down and started talking to them. She was now blocking the whole street with her big ass truck. I could not hear what they were saying but a lot of arm waving and laughing was going on. And the cars were beginning to pile up in front and behind the truck.

The old lady comes down from the cab and walks around to the back with the two people trailing behind her. Now people in cars are honking and starting to yell. The lady had done an impressive job of using the WHOLE street. As I am so grumpy anyway it was pissing me off and I was already parked!

Whoosh-the rolling door opens up and I am expecting to see stolen goods or a mass of drugs, but what I see is vegetables. Lots and lots of vegetables. She and the man climb up into the back of the truck and he starts picking out and handing her corn! She has a produce scale hanging from the celling and everything. There must have been 15 cars at this point honking and shouting. The old lady and guy never even looked up.

Such an Oakland moment. If we had only been 3 blocks or so south! Damn!

At that point I could not take the honking and yelling from all the stuck cars that this lady was incommoding. I took a walk around until it was time for me to go to my job. So Oakland was that lady I wanted to tell her to come and park over in my street and sell us vegetables of unknown origin.

Crazy Bike Lady and the Riot

One thing I have noticed about people is sometimes they are heroes and sometimes they are villains. In the last story of the crazy bike lady she saved us all from a junkie who was trashing our street and making it unsafe for the neighborhood kids to play outside. She has a different role in this one but it does show why we called her CBL.

The Wife had to go to a far away meeting one long ago Saturday morning and the Monkey was left all on her own. It was Summer and all the windows of the house were open and the curtains drawn back to try and catch the breeze.

I was downstairs when I heard lots of yelling from the building next door. I could tell it was not outside on the street but coming from inside their building, men and women. There was banging and it sounded like things breaking and more yelling. I thought maybe I was hearing a domestic dispute and wondered if I should call the cops.

Then it stopped. I waited a few minutes more and nothing-I went back to my breakfast. I was curious as a new family had moved in the month before. They had 4 kids and extended family which is not abnormal for the building next door. It has 4 units of 2 bedroom 2 bathroom big old apartments. It has tended toward families since I have lived next door.

A few hours pass and I hear a kid crying, not unusual. I look outside just to be sure the kid is okay and on the way I hear a second kid start crying and then angry adult voices. I looked out the window and saw the family from upstairs squared off against the family from downstairs.

However it was not the entirety of both families, it was only the women , lined up and ready to fight. About 15 feet away the men from both families stood in two groups looking sheepish and embarrassed. The women however, were not looking that way at all. In fact I was so surprised at seeing adult women about to rumble that it did not occur to me to turn around and call the police. I was just kinda stuck there, amazed that a bunch of 35-60 year old women were so angry with each other that they were about to fight.

There was a lot of shouting going on from the two sides. Then I noticed CBL on one side with the women and she is talking to a woman and it looks like she is urging her to fight. Then CBL steps over to the other group of women and yells at them. It looks like she is telling them the same thing. She continues to do this and then I can hear her saying to both sides who are about to hit each other-"Hit her! Go ahead and hit the bitch."

Have I told you I was scared of CBL when she lived here? Sometimes she was so nice and neighborly and other times I swear to god she tried to run me down on her bike and I had to JUMP out of the way. I always got this feeling she was walking a thin line and I did not want to do anything to push her one way or the other.

Seeing CBL inciting a riot did shake me loose enough to call the OPD. I told them there was a big fight and they had better come right away! They seemed to agree. I went back to the window and saw that two cars had parked in the street meaning it waas now blocked in both directions. Not the police, but famile back up for both sides. People poured out ofthe cars and joined sides. Now the men were yelling at each other and it was going to explode.

And still CBL went from side to side exhorting violence among the women.

The cops made it just in time and shut down the whole block with squad cars. It took about 3 hours to sort out what had been going on and many of the people from both families were arrested. Lastly tow trucks arrived and the two cars in the street were towed away. The street was all cleared up by the time The Wife arrived home.

When she came in she said to me-"Hey CBL said Hi to me and didn't even try to run me over! She must be having one of her good days!"

Oh yes, a very good day indeed!

A New Resident to The Street...

Leaving for work one day last week I noticed a new van parked away from my house down near the freeway. It was easy to see that it had been at one time an Enterprise airport shuttle van. Kelly green with an extended cab and a high roof. Huge green thing!

Vans, we get losta vans and usually with them come pimps/hookers or meth labs so I decided to keep my grumpy eye on the new van. I went on my way.

When I returned home that day the van had been transformed. The side and back had been hand painted, very neatly, in big white letters with a phone number and proclaimed-"SINGLE HANDED HANDYMAN-For Hire."

That stopped me. A little known fact about the Monkey is that her brother and her mother in law are missing hands. We do know what happened to said hands, so don't be alarmed. My brother and mother-in-law were both born with out a hand and you would be surprised at how that sometimes freaks otherwise normal people out.

It happens still to this day I will introduce my brother to someone and all will go great until they realize he does not have a left hand! More often than not they look at me like-"were you aware of this?" then realize I should not be queried in this matter and suddenly become very interested the floor. Recovery is quick and all is forgiven because when you come down to it it is different, a moment to process and come to terms with it is fine.

I can tell you it was not fine when he was 5 and I was 10. Kids were mean and said why they thought he only had one hand. When he started school it was the bus stop that was the worst, all different ages and classes mingling without any supervision.

So at 10 I learned to fight and I fought anyone who teased him. It didn't take long for people to figure out to leave him alone and by 1st grade he was part of the group. I have seen him go through it every time, high school, college a new job. With new people there is always that moment of realization that he is not the same.

Back to the van guy. I was excited that there was a 1 handed handyman and I wanted to see him. Why not? I am sure you could handyman with only one hand-I have seen contractors working before! Maybe even say hello to him. But he tricked me. I saw him yesterday by his van and he has 2 hands. Which bummed me out for a moment until I realized it's okay, to have two hands, I guess.

Damn Oakland Music Store

Okay, I have to vent about something that happened to me this week. Overall it was one of those weeks that was not so hot, but for a grumpy monkey I was doing remarkably well, until I went to the music store.

I have wanted to rent an instrument for a while now. I wanted to get a violin, I played when I was young and violins and cello are the most beautiful string instruments to me. As an adult I think I would also have the patience, which I lacked until quite recently, to actually succeed with an instrument.

So to recap, rough week-want violin-went to music shop even though I felt like crap.

The music store guy tells me to rent a violin, 12$/mo 100$dep., that they have to run my credit. I ask the guy the total value of the violin and he says 128$. I thought it was kinda weird but I was excited and filled out their form and gave it to them and went to pick out a teach yourself the violin kinda book.

The guy comes over and says they have denied my credit. Actually he loudly said I have bad credit. I was so shocked I could not think of a response. I ask him the reason I have been denied and he says they do not have to give me a reason. Now I have something to say and tell him I am trying to buy a house and I know every detail of my credit report and it is good, so if there is a problem I have a right(and a need) to know.

He tells me "the lady upstairs" says you have(loudly now)-bad credit. Can I talk with the "lady upstairs?" No. Can I talk to the manager? No he's not in. I told the guy he was mistaken and I do have a right to know why they denied me and turned to put my book back on the rack.

Then he says-Well, you know what I can do for you, I've got this one rental violin I can sell you for 128$, and then if you decide you don't want it you can bring it back and I will deduct 12$ off each month you kept it and buy it back for what ever is left over.

I think the look on my face said everything I could not at that moment because as soon as he finished talking he began to back up toward the safety of the counter. I told him to give me my credit form back and that I thought that was the best scam I had ever heard of AND I was not quite dumb enough to buy something from someone who had been so rude to me and made sure everyone in the store heard about my "bad credit."

I left the evil music store and went to work, worked, came home, ate and went to bed. Then I got up Thursday morning and had the best Thanksgiving I have had in a very long time. Good food, great family and we watched "The Big Chill." Good good movie that I had not seen since it was released in 83.

Hope you all had a wonderful day too!